I used to wear my mother’s nightys as capes. I used to run around the yard with endless amounts of energy, using whatever I could find as a new weapon in the war I was waging in my imagination. I used to loathe the night because it meant my play time was through and I savored every ounce of sunlight I could. “Just five more minutes!” was a common phrase. Just five more minutes. Just five more minutes. Just let me go back for five more minutes. Let me go back to when my bike was my stead and the woods were my home. Just let me go back to when I questioned life but with an innocence that could never be replicated. Let me go back to when dedication meant finding the best hiding place and staying there well after the seeker has boasted, “Come out! I don’t want to play anymore. You win.” Just five more minutes. Just five more minutes and I swear the show is over and I’ll go to bed. My head hits the pillow and then its morning and my adventure begins all over again. I used to feel like the coolest kid on the earth because I had a button up t shirt depicting Spider-Man fighting the Green Goblin in aerial combat. Batman was always my favorite though. He still is. Just five more minutes. Just five more minutes of sleep, that’s all I ask for these days. Please keep it down, you’re being too loud. Now, I rarely make it outside unless it’s to smoke a cigarette, otherwise, it’s just simply too far. I don’t have the energy. It’s not worth the effort. Now, I have headaches from my pothead friends who think they are “just having fun” but don’t realize that they are going to end up far more useless than they think and already are. “I know my mind, I could try coke.” Just five more minutes. Just let the night stay for five more minutes. It’s peaceful. It’s quite. I am alone. I don’t have to interact with the world I have learned to loathe. I can live in my mind without being disturbed. I don’t have to make eye contact with anyone but my keyboard. I’m tan from my computer screen. Artificial photosynthesis. Now, I take a pill to sleep and a pill to get out of bed. Just give me five more minutes. Just give me five more minutes with my crush on Molly Smith. That fifth grade naivety. Just give me five more minutes of being too terrified to talk to girls. No, actually, that one could change. It hasn’t yet. Just give me five more minutes of my mom waking me up every morning, rubbing my back and calling me, “Boo nu nu nu tu nu Bear”. Just give me five more minutes before I knew what heartbreak was, before I ever uttered the word “love.” Just give me five more minutes. Just give me five more minutes to build that table with my dad in the basement. Let me relive the pitch in the backyard that hit my thumb and knocked off my nail and hurt so much I couldn’t go to practice that day but I kind of milked it because I hated baseball anyway. Just give me five more minutes.

May art is not that good art. My art is raw. My art is pure. My art is sloppy and dirty and vulgar. My art worries my mother and questions Christ. My art would be censored on television. I could find other words but shit, fuck, cunt, and goddamn just bleed on to the paper as I empty my mind. My art hates you but not as much as it hates me. My art wants to piss you off and make you cry and move you to the point of sending me death threats. My art is against me. My art is my only comfort. My art is my enemy and my best friend. My art holds me close and fucks everything when I turn my back. My art is consistently inconsistent and I love her all the more for that. What’s your art? How’s it doing? Does it even have a name? Oh, I see. It’s spun from the web. A stolen stencil you claim as your own. A copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy I need a cup of coffee just to continue the repetition of how weak, bleak, and pointless your art; you have the nerve, the fucking audacity to call it art, is. It’s nothing. We’ve seen it before. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. You say you’re just being realistic well, I still think you’re just an asshole and I will have fun standing in line with all the other writers who never made it. At least I tried. At least I had a goal. At least I allowed something to enter my life and show me a passion that will never die. At least I was able to dream with my eyes wide open, staring you down until you finally see just how weak, small, and insignificant you actually are. But it’s all about the fashion. It’s all about the trends. It’s all about being hip in the out crowd. You’re too indie to be indie. Anti-anti. Well, I don’t need this. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t give a shit about who is fucking who you’re a bore. I abhor. I abhor the door that is locked for sure and the waves of the graves overflowing with the bodies that represented the sad, sorry excuses of life, wasted on the security of a house and a paycheck. The mundane excuse for settling and not achieving. Not tonight? Not tonight. Too tired for sex. Too tired to fuck. The word, the essence, the sound as it drips lustfully off of your lips now seems repulsive and dirty. Routine. Lather/rinse/repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Your exhale spells defeat but you’re not sure where your youth has gone. You’re not exactly sure why you feel so alone at your crowded office party with a wife to your left and a gun in your right, aching to intimately get to know your mind. Entering the temple, allowing you to finally sleep and even though my art may not be that good art, I will stand firm in that line of failed attempters, head held high, smirking as your gravestone rides by with the tidal wave of others, surfing on the bullshit you cluttered your life with. So, my art may not be that good art but at least I tried. At least I fucking have an art to hold tightly against my chest as I am lowered peacefully into the earth, knowing not where I’ll go, If I go anywhere at all but my not good art is still art at the end of the day and I’ll hold it to my chest as I am lowered in to the earth, knowing not where I’ll go, heaven or hell or damned to this wooden casket shell. My art is all I am and that’s all I ever wanted to be.